


The To Not Do List

by AnonymousCatastrophe405



Series: Just The Words [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:45:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousCatastrophe405/pseuds/AnonymousCatastrophe405
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam’s eyes aren’t even open yet and he’s already wishing to go back to sleep, just for five-ten-fifteen-fifty minutes, when it dawns on him that his alarm will be going off in less than three.   He turns his head to glare at the clock, at its dim blue display that’s actually very hard to read.  He’d guessed rightly about the time.  He doesn’t even groan as he hides his face against Ronan’s chest to wait out the looming start of another endless Tuesday.</p><p>Adam wants to stay in bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The To Not Do List

**Author's Note:**

> "There are a million important things to do. But none as important as lying here next to you."

Adam’s eyes aren’t even open yet and he’s already wishing to go back to sleep, just for five-ten-fifteen-fifty minutes, when it dawns on him that his alarm will be going off in less than three. He turns his head to glare at the clock, at its dim blue display that’s actually very hard to read. He’d guessed rightly about the time. He doesn’t even groan as he hides his face against Ronan’s chest to wait out the looming start of another endless Tuesday.

Adam wants to stay in bed.

It already feels like it has been Tuesday forever. An endless, near-comical Groundhog Day loop of Tuesdays, broken only by the scant and fleeting respites of school breaks colored by more hours at work, more hours spent tromping through the woods and mountains, alone, on errands for Cabeswater, more hours spent tromping through the woods and mountains, with Blue and Gansey and Ronan and sometimes Noah, looking for their sleeping king. He can’t remember the last time he’d had an actual day off, or a break between one demand of his time and another that lasted longer than an hour. He doesn’t even get full nights of sleep anymore–just glorified naps in the middle of the night before he has to go to his before school job.

There are still two minutes left before his alarm goes off. It feels like hours have passed. His eternal, restless hours.

He thinks he should get up rather than trying to prolong the inevitable. He doesn’t get up. He doesn’t watch the clock. He tries to not think anymore and can’t remember how to clear his mind without peering into dark water or a black mirror. Ronan’s skin is cool against his. Adam would feel badly about hogging all the blankets if Ronan wasn’t constantly kicking them off, ever a furnace hating his own heat.

Adam no longer finds it inconvenient to go about his morning in the dark and in silence. He can get dressed for work in the dark, chug his cold coffee and inhale whatever foodstuff he happens to put his hand on first, try to do one more noun declension or math problem huddled over the blindingly white light glow from Ronan’s phone, before crouching down to put his hand on the sleeping boy’s shoulder for a moment before heading out the door. On days when Adam is feeling daring and Ronan seems particularly asleep, he kisses Ronan’s head.

This is how, increasingly, Adam’s endless Tuesdays have been beginning. Going to bed together, even when Adam has to wake up before dawn to go to work and Ronan wakes up alone after the sun has risen, is a blessing for them both.

Another minute has passed. Adam forces himself away from Ronan and unplugs the alarm to not disturb him. He doesn’t get up so much as rolls off the flat mattress and onto the floor. Ronan senses his movement and tries to reach for him in his sleep. Finding the bed vacated, Ronan rolls from his back to his side to where Adam had been laying and murmurs as he presses into his pillow face-first. 

Adam wants to crawl under the arm stretched across the bed and get a few more hours of sleep. Adam wants to stay in bed and wake up with Ronan for a change, rather than leaving in the dark and returning after the sun and the other boy have risen. Adam wants to let his manager fret over getting the baking off done when she gets in at seven-thirty, over four hours from now, while he goes back to bed. Adam sighs and shuffles through the dark to the bathroom instead. 

When he comes back out, he gets the sensation of being watched. It takes him a moment to realize it’s not one Cabeswater’s specters here to harass him, but Ronan, bleary and partially awake. The orange streetlight outside illuminates his face harshly, and it is apparently the only light that doesn’t manage to flatter his features in some way. He tries to look at the clock, sees it’s display is blank, and looks out the window at the black sky beyond the orange glow of the streetlight.. 

“Time?” His voice is rough and the only bit of him Adam can see is his face, the rest of his long self curled up under the thin comforter he has reclaimed. Adam thinks, bizarrely, that he looks like a swaddled baby.

“Almost four.” Ronan huffs and groans, disappearing under the comforter completely. “I have the bakery, remember?” There’s a beat of silence, which coming from Ronan could mean several different things or nothing at all. He’s good at silence. While Adam waits to see if Ronan is going to eventually respond, he pours slightly burnt coffee into a chipped novelty mug and eats a banana. He changes into his uniform and tries, unsuccessfully, to tame his bedhead in the tiny bathroom mirror before putting on his hat. He searches for the shirt he’d slept in, only to realize Ronan dragged it under the comforter with him at some point. He realizes this because Ronan has kicked off the blanket again and is wearing the missing shirt.

“Go back to sleep,” Adam says. “I’ll be back by eight.”

“I know. Bagel?” He means to ask Adam to bring him one. 

“The usual?”

Ronan nods. The sixty-nine cents it will cost won’t hurt as badly as Adam thinks they will, and they both know this. They also both know sixty-nine cents will appear in the cupholder of Adam’s car by the time he returns. Adam reaches for Ronan’s phone to check the time. Ronan hisses at the brightness of the screen and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, and Adam squints at it as it makes his retinas throb painfully. 

“I have to go.”

“Mm-hm.”

“C’mere.” 

Ronan doesn’t move his hands away from his face, but he leans towards Adam and rests his head on his thigh. He’s so warm, and he smells good, like sleep-sweat and Adam’s bed and Monmouth and the BMW all at once. 

Ronan props himself up on his elbow. “Go. I’ll lock up.”

Pulling away and standing is almost as hard as waking up. As Adam tugs on a sweatshirt and slips into his shoes, Ronan hauls himself off the mattress with incredible effort, dragging the comforter with him, a tired king roused to do his kingdom’s bidding before dawn. Adam’s shirt hangs on him, worn and stretched and a bigger size than Ronan would buy for himself, but it’s slightly short on his longer torso. There’s a gap of tantalizing white skin and a strip of sparse dark hair between the pilfered shirt and his borrowed shorts. He rests his head briefly against Adam’s at the door in lieu of a kiss.

“Love you,” Adam tells him. He’s still not sure what it really means to say it, only that saying it sometimes makes him want to cry.

“Love you,” Ronan tells him. Adam’s not sure what it really means to be told this, only that hearing it sometimes makes him want to cry. “Have good work.”

Adam opens the door and steps into the narrow, whitewashed hallway. “Go back to bed.”

“Not the boss of me,” Ronan murmurs vaguely as he shuts the door. Adam hears him shuffle back to the other side of the apartment and the thud of his collapse onto the mattress. 

Adam goes to work on his bike to save gas. Ronan picks him up at 7:45 to save him the bike ride home. They pretend that it’s a Saturday in June and not a Tuesday in November and ignore the bagel Adam brought home and the fresh pot of coffee Ronan made and go back to bed for a while, as if the morning never happened.

The hour before they’re due in first period Latin is endless. The rest of the day when they don’t get out of bed again is endless.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and work inspired by "The To Not Do List", which is transcribed verbatim above, out of I Wrote This For You: Just the Words


End file.
